Mayor: Budget approval invalid

ERIC CONOVER/Staff Photographer
Hazleton Mayor Joe Yannuzzi talks to members of city council about budget problems during a recent meeting at Hazleton City Hall. The mayor claims council's actions until the end of the year are moot according to theThird Class City Code and his budget, with a proposed 83 percent tax hike will go into effect Jan.1.

The mayor of Hazleton believes his original budget proposal will take effect Jan. 1 despite the action council took Thursday to tentatively approve an amended version of his fiscal plan.

Mayor Joseph Yannuzzi did not attend council's Thursday meeting, but he said on Friday that the five city council members did not properly follow Hazleton's Third Class City Code when amending, then voting on an adjusted version of his budget proposal.

According to Yannuzzi, council's mistake renders their vote invalid, which means the mayor's original budget proposal, complete with its 83 percent tax increase, will automatically go into effect Jan. 1.

According to the mayor, the city code permits council to approve by majority vote amendments that decrease spending, but to increase the dollar amount of a line item, council must approve it by "majority plus one," which, in Hazleton's case, would be four affirmative votes.

The amended version of the budget approved by council Thursday included increases in revenue from levy of a wastewater management fee, city take-over of the parking authority, timbering, an increase in the per capita tax, and a 23 percent increase in property taxes. Yannuzzi said the increases in the amended budget are revenues and taxes, not expenditures, but they're still increases and, therefore, are subject to the "majority plus one" rule.

Council approved the amended budget 3-2.

"So it failed, but I don't think they realize it failed," Yannuzzi said.

Even if four council members voted in favor on Thursday, Yannuzzi said there is not enough time to make the document available for public review for the required ten days before final adoption by the Dec. 31 deadline.

"When you're spending that amount of money and cutting that amount of money, you have to give the public ten days," the mayor said.

Yannuzzi also said it appears council threw away his proposed budget and came up with a fiscal plan of their own, which is a violation of the city code.

"The mayor makes up the budget, council makes amendments," Yannuzzi said. "But they actually discarded mine and came up with their own numbers. Mine is laying on the ground somewhere," he said.

The insufficient vote count, the inability to give the public ten days to view the document before Dec. 31, and council's re-write of the mayor's original proposal all add up to invalid council action and an automatic adoption of the mayor's budget on Jan. 1, Yannuzzi said.

"In my opinion, they didn't approve a budget so my budget will go forward," he said.

Questions on the budget validity are being researched by the city solicitor, the mayor said. A call to solicitor Chris Slusser for comment Friday was unreturned.

In addition to questioning the legality of council's action, Yannuzzi said he does not support the cuts in police and fire department funding in council's amended version of the budget.

"I don't agree with any of the cuts. You can't cut the police, you can't cut the fire department," he said.

If he's right about council's action being invalid, Yannuzzi said the funding cuts attempted by council will be restored.

"If what I'm saying is true, (the cuts) are not going to happen," he said, though he stopped short of calling automatic authorization of his budget a victory.

"I wouldn't look at it as a victory but I think my budget is the only way the city is going to exist. I just think what I presented was a true budget," he said.

To the average property owner who will bear the brunt of the 83 percent tax hike in the default budget, Yannuzzi said the increase averages out to about 71-cents a day or about $4.95 a week.

Yannuzzi said he did not attend council's Thursday meeting because he felt any action they took was moot.

"I thought the meeting was for naught because they didn't have the votes to approve the amendments and they didn't have ten days to approve it before Dec. 31," he said.

mlight@standardspeaker.com

We welcome user discussion on our site, under the following guidelines:

To comment you must first create a profile and sign-in with a verified DISQUS account or social network ID. Sign up here.

Comments in violation of the rules will be denied, and repeat violators will be banned. Please help police the community by flagging offensive comments for our moderators to review. By posting a comment, you agree to our full terms and conditions. Click here to read terms and conditions.

U.S. Homeland Security remains in charge of the fate of Affre Ortega-Beato, 42, of the Dominican Republic, a fugitive and drug suspect captured during Friday’s multi-agency raid in the Buttonwood Street row houses in Hazleton. U.S. Marshals in Scranton
(read more)